Publicly Traded Banks.com Enters Into Agreement with Domain Capital

Elliot Silver
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14

I just learned that Banks.com, a company that is publicly traded on the American Stock Exchange under ticker symbol BNX, has entered into a “sale-leaseback” agreement with domain financing company, Domain Capital.

It appears that Domain Capital financed the Banks.com domain name for $600,000, and Banks.com is required to make monthly payments of $14,273.96 for 5 years. With interest, the total amount Banks.com is required to pay over the course of the agreement is $856,437.60.

For me, it’s good to see publicly disclosed deals like this because it shows others that there are options for domain financing. I would imagine it could be tough to get a bank to give a loan on a domain name without a significant amount of red tape (if at all).

The guys at Domain Capital attend virtually every domain conference and tradeshow, and they know the market better than most, allowing both companies to strike a fair deal for a valuable domain asset. This allows a domain owner to get liquidity more easily.

The company filed a SEC Form 8-k to announce the details of this agreement.

Props to Berkens

Elliot Silver
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0

Although he probably won’t read this as he’s en route to Colombia for the ICANN conference, I want to give props to Mike Berkens and his blog on this third anniversary of its existence.

Mike really has no need to spend his time blogging. His company has one of the top private domain portfolios in existence. Dan Warner published a report that revealed the domains in Most Wanted Domains’ portfolio had the most (or top 5) Whois lookups of any privately held company. Mike’s company’s nameservers were also named one of the “cleanest” in terms of trademarks out of the nameservers with the most domain names.

In other words, not only does Mike own a lot of domain names that are coveted by others, but his portfolio is unarguably made up of generic/descriptive domain names. He also sells domain names from time to time, and when he does, he gets top dollar for them.

Clearly, Mike isn’t blogging to make money.

Mike writes one of the most thoughtful and insightful blogs (if not the most insightful) I read, and I really appreciate his thoughts and ideas. Not only does he have the domain experience, but he also has legal experience as well, which allows him to analyze issues and write them with clarity I wouldn’t get elsewhere. I can’t tell you how many times there was something I didn’t understand until reading about it on his blog.

In addition to this, Mike is one of the most approachable people in the domain space. If you’re at a domain conference, you’ll see him surrounded by friends and colleagues, and he’s always willing to give his time to chat. If Mike isn’t attending a domain conference, it probably isn’t worth going.

When Mike revealed that he had 2,400 posts in 3 years, my jaw dropped. I think I started my blog about 4 months before he did, and he has over 500 more posts than me. Knowing how much time it takes to blog, one really needs to give kudos to Mike’s wife, Judi. I am sure there have been plenty of dinners and events put on hold briefly while writing posts.

I want to say “thanks” to Mike in a blog post for all of his contributions. There aren’t a lot of people who would be willing to share as much as he does (time and insight), and it’s genuinely appreciated.

Oversee Looking to Hire Product Manager

Elliot Silver
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2

A listing for a job opening at Oversee.net hit my inbox via Google Alerts this morning, and I wanted to pass the information along to anyone that might be looking for more of a corporate job in the domain space.

The company is looking to hire a Product Manager for its Monetization Domain Services division. The responsibilities this job entails includes the following: “defining product strategy, product requirements, product positioning, competitive intelligence, & defining and tracking product and business success metrics for the next generation of revenue drivers for the division. This position requires an individual that can work closely and collaboratively with a cross-functional team that includes product & engineering team, business, sales, marketing, analytics, legal and finance.”

Oversee.net is one of the most well-rounded domain companies, and the company operates in just about all verticals of the domain space. The person who is hired will work out of the company’s Los Angeles office.

You can see the Craigslist listing here, and that has information about the job requirements as well as applying for the job.

Go Ahead… Ask Your Domain Questions

Elliot Silver
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19

As a result of having a blog, I receive ALOT of emails asking every kind of domain related question you can probably imagine. Some questions are simple and require just a one word reply, while others are more complicated and thought provoking.

I haven’t always had time to answer all the questions that come in, especially when they require a more complicated answer or when I just don’t know the answer. I enjoy being able to help people, and it sucks to not be able to assist sometimes.

With that in mind, I decided to launch DomainQuestions.com, a new website where people can post questions and answers related to anything in the domain industry. Since many of the people who email me aren’t familiar with the domain industry, I felt that they wouldn’t necessarily want to join a forum, and they could easily sign up to post a question on DomainQuestions.com.

I intend to send people who ask me questions to this website to post them. On the site, I will do my best to answer the questions, and I hope others will contribute as well. I also plan to reach out to friends and colleagues when I see a question that I can’t (or shouldn’t answer).

One of the nice things is that I will have a place to send people when questions that were asked in the past are asked in the future. This will allow people to continue to post answers to older questions as well as newer questions. I am hoping this will become a domain knowledgebase, and I hope you will contribute or participate.

I am excited about DomainQuestions.com, and I hope to see you there.

New Unsolicited Emails Received

Elliot Silver
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17

I bought a domain name this morning at Moniker, and this evening I received the unsolicited email below. It’s kinda crazy that they are sending out these emails the same day as the domain registration. I wonder how many people are getting the same crap.

Ironically, I got a similar email last week under similar circumstances.  See that one below for something interesting I noticed.  Who else is getting these emails?

Email received 10/24

From: newdomain@inline.me
Subject: xxxxxxx.com purchase

I noticed you just bought xxxxxxxxxxx.com.

Our statistics indicate that your domain’s primary keyword phrase, ‘xxxxxx xxxxxx’, gets around x exact local searches per month and x exact global searches per month. We have many similar domain names available that get a lot more monthly searches and will bring you a lot more traffic.

Here is our list of domains about xxxxxx xxxxxx.
http://adddomainnames.com/?id=xxxxxxxx

We also have a daily premium domain drop list.
Subscribe to our drop list
http://adddomainnames.com/drop_subscribe.php?id=xxxxxxxxx

We can also help you with developing your domains, hosting your websites, and getting your sites to rank high in the search engines.

Now have a look at the previous email that I received last week. Notice the bolded segment, which seems to have been removed, perhaps because of the legal intervention from my registrar.

Email received 10/15

From: newdomain@inline.me
Subject: xxxxxxx.com purchase

I noticed you just bought xxxxxxxxxx.com from one of our partner registrars.

Our statistics indicate that domain’s primary keyword phrase, ‘xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx’, gets around x exact local searches per month and x exact global searches per month. We have many similar domain names available that get a lot more monthly searches and will bring you a lot more traffic.

Here is our list of domains about xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx.
http://adddomainnames.com/?e=xxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com&k=xxxxxxxxx

We also have a daily premium domain drop list.
Subscribe to our drop list
http://adddomainnames.com/drop_subscribe.php?e=xxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com&k=xxxxxxxxxxxx

Random premium domains we purchased and pricing.
These are first come first serve. Send an email to newdomain@inline.me
keyword | domain – (exact local searches | exact global searches) – price
motorcycle audio systems | motorcycleaudiosystems.com – (1600 | 1300) – $80
miss swan | missswan.com – (40500 | 90500) – $120
blood sugar levels chart | bloodsugarlevelschart.com – (22200 | 18000) – $200
how to tie your shoes | howtotieyourshoes.com – (2900 | 4400) – $110

We can also help you with developing your domains, hosting your websites, and getting your sites to rank highly in the search engines.

newdomain@inline.me
10765 Reading Road – Cincinnati, Ohio
To Opt out:http://adddomainnames.com/unsubscribe.php?e=xxxxxxxxxx

Traffic Sunday Updates

Elliot Silver
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3

I am driving down to Miami tomorrow for the Traffic conference. Based on what I am hearing, it sounds like its going to be a pretty big conference. Here are a few things I am looking forward to at the show (on an iPad so my apologies for any typos):

– I hear that somewhere in the ballpark of 300-400 people will be in attendance. This is a great turnout compared to some recent Traffic shows. It will be a good chance to meet with people I don’t see very often. The last big conference I attended was DomainFest in January. Rick and Howard have put a lot into making this a big conference.

– I think the auction is going to see some good results. There are quite a few good names that seem to have reasonable reserves. With some recent underwhelming auctions, I think Rick Latona and his team have been working harder than ever to ensure a successful auction.

– One of my favorite domain names at Rick’s auction is FruitBaskets.com, and it’s not because I received a fruit basket advertising the name. Aside from a company like Harry and David’s and Baskets.com, I don’t know many brands of fruit basket companies. Without a  dominant leader, a company that operates on the generic domain name can become the perceived leading brand. I think 1800-Baskets, which operates Baskets.com (owned by 1800-Flowers) would be a good candidate to buy this name. They should probably make a business case to buy it, so at the very least, they don’t give another company a chance to compete immediately.

– There are quite a few premium .CO domain names like Pizza.co up for auction. This will be a big test for .CO since their closed auctions have been doing great, but there haven’t been many big sales happening outside of these (from my perspective). It will also be interesting to see what companies bid.

– Aftermarket.com has been preparing for a re-launch for a while and has been collecting email addresses on its website. Perhaps some new details about the relaunch will be released during the course of the conference. Thought Convergence is a dynamic company, and it will be exciting to see what the brand will offer its customers and clients.  

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